Alf Norkko

Professor of Baltic Sea research at TZS, Royal guest professor at the Baltic Sea Centre, Stockholm University. Funded by the Nottbeck foundation, University of Helsinki, Stockholm University.

My role is to broadly promote Baltic Sea research and synthesis and marine ecological research. In my own research I work with understanding marine ecosystem processes in general and the ecology of seafloor habitats in particular. I am broadly interested in community ecology, exploring the value of biodiversity and the mechanisms important for its maintenance, and promoting basic science as a solid knowledge base to support decision-making. Examples of current research questions being addressed include the biodiversity of seafloor communities and their influence on carbon and nutrient transformation and retention along environmental gradients in coastal ecosystems, and cross-habitat quantifications of ecosystem metabolism and habitat-function relationships across coastal seafloor habitats.

BONUS COCOA - Nutrient cocktail in coastal zones of the Baltic Sea – improving understanding of the transformation and retention of nutrients and organic matter in the coastal zone. (Co-PI: funded jointly by the EU and the Academy of Finland, 2014-2017)

Karl Attard

Postdoctoral Researcher. Funded by the Academy of Finland.

My research explores the productivity of coastal waters and the factors that drive fundamental ecosystem processes such as primary productivity and respiration. Seafloor habitats are a key focus of my work, because they represent hotspots of biodiversity and productivity within the coastal zone but they remain poorly studied. Filling in this knowledge gap requires a novel interdisciplinary approach that investigates productivity rates in combination with other factors of influence such as sunlight and nutrient availability, hydrodynamics, and biodiversity. The success of this work is tightly linked to the use of new and evolving technologies such as Aquatic Eddy Covariance and microsensor techniques.

Eero Asmala

Academy Postdoctoral Researcher. Funded by Academy of Finland

My research covers broadly organic matter biogeochemistry in coastal areas. My current project focuses on short-term variations in river discharge (such as rain events) and their effect on organic matter inputs to coastal areas. Previously I have studied the compositional characteristics of dissolved organic matter across the land-sea transition, particularly in the Baltic Sea.

Current research project:

PROSECCO: Impact of climatic variability on biogeochemical processing of riverine organic carbon in coastal environments. (PI: Funded by the Academy of Finland, 2017-2020).

Jaanika Blomster

University Lecturer in Aquatic Sciences.

I have worked for over 10 years at the University of Helsinki teaching higher education courses in Marine Biology and Aquatic Sciences. Besides lecturing and teaching courses in the laboratory and in the field, I have been involved in curriculum planning and have supervised a number of higher education students in their studies and thesis work. I am a member of the Teachers’ Academy of the University of Helsinki, and am currently the Director of the BSc Programme in Environmental Sciences. In my research I am working on algal systematics, genomics and sea-ice ecology (in the Baltic Sea and the Antarctica).

Current research project:

FunkVeg - The origin and regeneration of free-living populations of Fucus vesiculosus in the northern Baltic Sea. In this project, I am working on the population genetics and physiological adaptions of Fucus vesiculosus with Ph.D. student Roxana Preston.

Rebecca Gladstone-Gallagher

Postdoctoral researcher at University of Auckland and TZS.Funded by the Rutherford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship (New Zealand), and Walter and Andrée de Nottbeck Foundation.

I am a field ecologist and I am interested in biodiversity and ecosystem function in coastal soft-sediment, seagrass, and mangrove ecosystems. My current research focus is on the traits that make seafloor ecosystems resilient to human disturbances. Coastal marine ecosystems are some of the most impacted by multiple human activities, and my research aims to understand how different elements of biodiversity protect against the loss of ecosystem function under human disturbances in the coastal environment. Specifically, I am interested in teasing apart the elements of biodiversity that make seafloor macrofaunal communities resilient to human disturbances that occur at different spatial and temporal scales. My research aims to find practical ways to assess vulnerability of coastal marine ecosystems to future Anthropogenic pressures and disturbances.

Current projects:

Assessing the role of biodiversity in maintaining coastal ecosystem health in the Anthropocene (Funded by: Rutherford Foundation, and Walter and Andrée de Nottbeck Foundation)

Bo Gustafsson

Director, BNI Sweden. Visiting researcher at TZS.

Bo Gustafsson is Director of the Baltic Nest Institute Sweden. He holds a PhD in physical oceanography from Gothenburg University and has over 20 years experience of scientific research on the Baltic Sea. He has primarily worked with development of numerical models of ocean circulation and biogeochemical cycles, but specialize more and more in the interaction between physical and biogeochemical processes on large scales. The main focus is development and implementation of marine models in the Nest system. Dr. Gustafsson also suport HELCOM with scientific advice, as an active member of numerous HELCOM working groups and projects, and is one of the key researchers behind the work with the Baltic Sea Action Plan.

Camilla Gustafsson

Post-doctoral Researcherat TZS.Funded by the Academy of Finland.

Seagrasses and other aquatic plants are foundation species that maintain biodiversity and modify the abiotic and biotic environment. They form vast underwater meadows that can contain up to 8-9 co-occurring plant species. My research interests lie in the field of marine biodiversity and ecosystem functioning with a focus on submerged vegetation i.e. seagrasses and other vascular aquatic plants. More specifically, I explore how aquatic plant functional diversity in terms of functional traits can be linked to ecosystem processes (e.g. primary production and nutrient cycling) and properties (community resilience and recovery) in submerged aquatic plant meadows.

Dana Hellemann

Postdoctoral Researcher. Funded by the Walter and Andrée de Nottbeck Foundation.

My research interests lie in the field of marine biogeochemistry, with a focus on elemental cycling in coastal systems, biogeochemical responses to anthropogenic pressures, and, particularly, benthic nitrogen turnover. Excess availability of land-derived nitrogen in coastal waters has led to coastal eutrophication all around the world, including the Baltic Sea; at the same time, elemental turnover processes in the coastal zone can temporarily retain and permanently remove nitrogen, thereby mitigating its transport to open waters. Understanding nitrogen turnover in the coastal habitat is thus imperative for understanding its fate in the wider marine system. In my current project, I look at the intrinsic link between the nitrogen- and carbon-cycle, and investigate how the specific composition of in situ organic carbon affects benthic nitrate reduction processes in different zones of the Baltic Sea coast along a seasonal cycle from pre- to post-spring bloom conditions.

Christoph Humborg

Christoph Humborg is a Professor of Coastal Biogeochemistry and Scientific Director of the Baltic Sea Centre, Stockholm University, Sweden. One main research focus deals with eutrophication issues of
the Baltic Sea and its catchment. We address nutrient pathways in various watersheds and
estuaries of the Baltic, investigate large scale phosphorus and oxygen dynamics in the Baltic
Sea and estimate the environmental status of the Baltic. Our team was involved in the
formulation of the Baltic Sea Action Plan. I coordinated and currently participate in several
EU BONUS projects dealing with environmental issues of the Baltic Sea. Within the Baltic
Eye team I act as the scientific supervisor of the various projects. Moreover, I am involved in international studies on carbon dynamics in high latitude watersheds and estuaries and along the entire Siberian Shelf with focus on riverine carbon transports, water column carbon dynamics and GHG emissions.

Tom Jilbert

Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) in Aquatic Biogeochemistry at Viikki and Academy Research Fellow. Funded by Academy of Finland, Vesijärvi Foundation, University of Helsinki.

I am specialized in the study of sediment biogeochemistry and nutrient cycling, in particular in eutrophied coastal environments. I have studied the role of phosphorus in eutrophication and hypoxia in the Baltic Sea, as well as broader biogeochemical cycles in the Black Sea and Dutch estuaries. Moreover I am interested in past changes in nutrient cycling over recent centuries to millennia. My new Academy Research Fellowship project focuses on the use of sedimentary trace metals as recorders of the expansion of dead zones in the coastal seas of Europe. I will also work with biogeochemical modelers to understand feedbacks in the phosphorus cycle that control the waxing and waning of the dead zone in the Baltic Sea. The results will directly influence future management of nutrient loading to the Baltic.

Laura Kauppi

Post-doctoral researcher at TZS. Funded by Viking Line and Walter and Andrée de Nottbeck foundation.

Climate change, eutrophication and species introductions promote changes in the structure and function of marine benthic communities. My research focuses on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in the benthos with a special emphasis on invasive species. I am interested in what affects the structuring of the communities, and how the biotic and abiotic interactions affect the outcome of different processes. More specifically I am studying the effects of macrofauna and environmental factors on bioturbation and nutrient cycling in the coastal environment.

Current research projects:

Changes in the population of a key species, Limecola balthica, 1926-2017. (Post doc, funded by Viking Line, 2018).

Aleksandra M. Lewandowska

Assistant Professor in Marine Functional Biodiversity at TZS. Funded by the Nottbeck Foundation.

As climate change progresses and human activities intensify, many marine species decline in abundance or become regionally extinct, which affects functional stability of ecosystems. In my research I focus on the impact of climate change on biodiversity in marine pelagic food webs. I am interested how biodiversity patterns and species interactions affect ecosystem productivity and elements cycling between trophic levels. In my work I combine different approaches including field and laboratory experiments, data analyses and statistical models. I am also actively involved in several synthesis projects investigating global biodiversity patterns.

Current research projects:

Phytos – Resource competitive ability of marine phytoplankton along a salinity gradient and the consequences for stoichiometric variation in the sea. (PI, funded by the Nottbeck Foundation, 2018-2022).

GEISHA – Global evaluation of the impacts of storms on freshwater habitat and structure of phytoplankton assemblages. (Core-group member, funded by the Center for the Synthesis and Analysis of Biodiversity CESAB & the USGS Powell Center, 2016-2019).

sMarD – Global changes in marine plankton diversity and productivity. (PI, funded by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research iDiv Halle-Jena-Leipzig).

Joanna Norkko

Acting Director at TZS

My role is to facilitate all research projects at the station and to represent the station in different research infrastructure networks. I also work with general outreach, information and media contacts. I am a marine benthic ecologist with a particular interest in the links between soft-sediment invertebrate fauna, including invasive species, and ecosystem functioning. I want to know how environmental change, such as eutrophication, hypoxia, climate change, ocean acidification, invasive species, and the increasing amounts of microplastics in the sea, affects the benthic fauna and subsequently ecosystem functioning.

BONUS COCOA - Nutrient cocktail in coastal zones of the Baltic Sea – improving understanding of the transformation and retention of nutrients and organic matter in the coastal zone. (Team member, funded jointly by the EU and the Academy of Finland, 2014-2017).

Iván Franco Rodil

Researcher at TZS. Funded by the University of Helsinki/Stockholm University collaboration (Baltic Bridge).

My research focuses on exploring the role of key coastal habitats (e.g. bladder-wrack and blue mussel rocky beds, seagrass and bare soft-sediments) in the biodiversity and ecosystem functioning of the Baltic Sea. We are using the Aquatic Eddy Covariance as a cutting-edge way to quantify habitat-function relationships across key coastal habitats. I am also interested in the effects of increasing accumulations of drifting macroalgal detritus on the functioning of coastal habitats. I study how detritus source dynamics and characteristics might affect benthic communities, oxygen dynamics and the composition of carbon in coastal areas affected by eutrophication and influenced by large drifting accumulations.

Baltic Sea eutrophication: the effects of increasing accumulations of drifting algal detritus on the functioning of shallow coastal habitats. (PI. Funded by the Walter and Andrée de Nottbeck Foundation. 01.01.2017–31.12.2020).

Anna Villnäs

Researcher at TZS. Funded by the Academy of Finland, Sophie von Julins Stiftelse, University of Helsinki and the Walter and Andrée de Nottbeck Foundation.

Our coastal environments provide a wide range of essential ecosystem functions and services. These diverse, productive environments are threatened by disturbances such as climate change and eutrophication. As a marine benthic ecologist, I explore how structural and functional aspects of biodiversity relates to ecosystem functions and services, and how changes in the environment affect this relationship. In current research, I use biological traits to estimate the role of benthic fauna for carbon and nutrient turnover in the coastal ecosystem. Although I perform basic ecological research, I strive to make research findings relevant for environmental management and for the general public.

Current research projects:

Elemental stoichiometry of benthic invertebrates as driver of coastal biogeochemical cycles. (PI: funded by the Academy of Finland, the University of Helsinki and the Nottbeck foundation, 2019-2022).

BONUS COCOA - Nutrient cocktail in coastal zones of the Baltic Sea – improving understanding of the transformation and retention of nutrients and organic matter in the coastal zone. (Post doc: funded jointly by the EU and the Academy of Finland, 2014-2017).

Mats Westerbom

Researcher at TZS. Funded by the Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland.

I have been studying blue mussel population dynamics at Tvärminne Zoological Station for > 20 years. My research interest circle around spatial ecology, also including temporal questions, i.e. how and why species use their environment as they do and how a changing environment affect their ecology. I am also interested in community ecology, including in addition to benthic invertebrates also macrophytes and fish. My recent 10 years were spent as senior advisor and conservation biologist at the state owned enterprise Metsähallitus. Through the day-to-day work with marine conservation issues, including legislation, environmental assessments and management, my niche and interest lies in the interface between ecosystem ecology and applied ecology.

Current research project:

Living at the edge. Funded by the Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland.